S. Awan is an independent journalist, culture lover and student of history, navigating the depths of various aspects of culture, politics, music, film, the controversial and the weird.
Also a musician, and part-time freelance, involuntary human being. Also occasionally lives on the moon. Also is a ghost. And a cigarette butt that hasn't been put out properly; so, you know, there's still, like, smoke coming out of it and stuff...

A June 8th Conspiracy Theory – Is THERESA MAY Planning to Lose the Election…?

I had a thought in recent days – concerning the June 8th election.

And then I had a look online and realised other people had been having the same thought: specifically, the possibility that Theresa May and the Tories are deliberately hoping to lose this election.

It had been occurring to me for some weeks – as bad Tory policies and missteps continued to add up. But the point where it went from being a random musing to a more serious thought was when FOX HUNTING was suddenly in the news and on the Tory agenda again – which felt like a totally random and entirely unnecessary piece of time-travel (and a very odd thing to revive at a time when you’re trying to secure votes and strengthen your mandate).

The Prime Minister then skipping the Leaders Debate last night (and in general refusing to debate with Jeremy Corbyn) seemed to add to this suspicion.

For the record, I actually don’t think Mrs May and her party are trying to lose the election. I would still think the probable elite vision for Brexit and post-EU Britain would negate any likelihood of throwing in the towel at this stage.

But I can definitely see why some people are suspicious; why is why I am presenting the case here.

The basic idea is that Mrs May and her government have fully realised that there’s no hope of getting ‘a good deal’ from the EU and that the problems that might come from leaving the EU (with a bad deal or with no deal) could be enormous. And no politician or party wants to be presiding over a catastrophe.

The idea might be to hand over the poisoned chalice to Jeremy Corbyn, so that the mess is perceived to be his and Labour’s doing and a result of their ‘crazy’ ideas and incompetence.

In fact, this works even better if – instead of a straight Labour government – we have the “coalition of chaos”, via which every opposition party (Labour, Lib Dems, SNP) can be portrayed as the people who messed everything up. In reality, of course, the entire ‘crisis’ (if there is a crisis) is Tory made from start to finish – as the referendum was a Tory enterprise; but the point would be to lumber someone else with the crisis and have them be the fall guy.

That could even be why Mrs May triggered Article 50 before calling a snap election.

On the other hand, another theory floating around is that Mrs May believes that ‘Brexit’ will have to be reversed, but doesn’t want the Conservative Party to be seen as the party that went back on its own operation. In this version of events, have Corbyn be blamed for anything that goes wrong with Brexit and the negotiations, and then have the UK scrap Brexit entirely and rejoin the EU (either under a non-Tory government or a Tory government that can claim to be fixing ‘someone else’s’ mess in the only way now possible).

On this note – specifically the relentless meme/idea of Corbyn being a “disaster” – it is interesting that, in spite of how well he is doing and how much genuine support is with him, the right-wing press is continuing with that particular brand of predictive-programming or psy-op. Take, for example, The Daily Mail’s highly sensational and contrived ‘fictional’ account of what happens when Corbyn wins the election (image below for a taster).

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The Daily Mail’s weird propaganda exercise is so extreme and so ridiculous, but even more so if you factor in the fact that Jeremy Corbyn is in fact the one opposition leader who is actually promising that The Daily Mail’s long-sought Brexit will actually go ahead.

We’ll have to watch and see what Mrs May does between now and June 8th to see if this idea of the deliberately-lost election has any merit. Though, I should add: her losing the election or Corbyn winning it won’t ‘prove’ the theory at all. Corbyn genuinely has a lot of support (and it is growing quickly) and he has risen to the challenge of this election incredibly well so far. All the establishment figures, newspapers and commentators that have spent a year-and-a-half trying to convince everyone he is ‘unelectable’ or even unfit for party leadership have lost their case very quickly.

Getting back to the point, I was looking around for anyone who might’ve already posted a piece on this idea of the Tories deliberately looking to lose: and thankfully I found this piece by Alex McNamara on Evolve Politics, which I’ll reproduce a few paragraphs of here (as it saves me some time).

He writes, ‘Here’s the thing. Theresa May and her Conservatives could well now be realising the enormity, and simply impossible mandate of what they’re supposed to deliver Brits with Brexit. The whole ‘Leave’ campaign was based on fairytales, and soon the chickens are gonna come home to roost. They know full well leaving the EU and single market under current circumstances is economic suicide, that the EU won’t play ball, and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility it could collapse the whole sodding country. Even more likely is it could break up the United Kingdom itself.’

Continues, ‘Combine that with the fact millions of us are simply gobsmacked by the Tory manifesto. Even some Tories. It’s just so callous and so persecuting of the lesser fortunate, so shamelessly playing for the benefits of the upper classes and elites, it really does beggar belief.’

He also lists some of the highly unpopular moves Mrs May has made in recent weeks – things that, in normal circumstances, no party would do in the direct lead-in to an election. This has included targeting pensioners (who are a key reason the Tories win elections), reviving a dead-and-buried debate on fox hunting (that no one was interested in) and even something like re-legalising the ivory trade.

He continues, ‘The Tories can no longer polish the turd of Brexit, they know the country is absolutely f**ked – they’ve pushed us off the cliff, and now wish to be as far removed from the inevitable bloodbath as humanly possible. They literally cannot deliver their vacuous promises. By now handing over to Labour (or possibly the Lib Dems, if you believe in miracles) to pick up the pieces, they literally pass the sh*t-laden buck. Then, having spent two years setting Jeremy Corbyn up to look like an incompetent fool, they simply blame the fallout on him. It would make quite a convincing narrative actually.’

He also touches on another, related outcome as a possibility. ‘And of course, if the non-Tory party in power decided to reverse Brexit – put a halt on the whole daisy-chain off a cliff thing, they’d probably risk actual civil war in this country. The nationalists would tear the place apart. ‘

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So what do we think?

On the balance, I’m not entirely convinced this is what’s happening. For one thing, it sells Jeremy Corbyn himself too short. I also doubt that the Tories or Theresa May would be willing to give up power even in these circumstances. I also highly doubt they would risk a Corbyn government even for a little while in terms of the effect it would have on British foreign policy.

However, at the same time, you do have to wonder why Theresa May would call a snap election (when she swore categorically that she wouldn’t) and then approach the election so badly.

In terms of the idea of allowing someone like Corbyn to win the election (as a fall guy), this is in the same vein as a conspiracy theory that I saw cropping up in last year’s presidential election: specifically, the idea that the Republican elites may have rigged the electoral college vote in Trump’s favor so that an impending or inevitable crisis or economic collapse could later be squarely blamed on an incompetent Trump – who, like Corbyn, had been thoroughly depicted for months prior to the election as the ‘dangerous’ or ‘foolish’ option that would lead to chaos or disaster.

Though I do think the evidence is there that the electoral college vote in the US was rigged; I tend not to believe it was for those reasons, but for the much simpler reasons of the 1% elite being able to fully take over. I still think that’s what Brexit is geared towards in this country too, as previously argued – which is why I probably don’t think Theresa May or the Tories are trying to lose this election.

The reality is probably simply that Mrs May and her team are simply incredibly arrogant and have simply miscalculated their perceived invincibility, and also misjudged the popularity of Corbyn and his ability to build momentum extremely quickly (remember – Corbyn had no idea he would be going into an election this soon).

They may be so emboldened by the perceived mandate that ‘Brexit’ gives them (and by their vast lead in the polls at the time May called the election) that they literally thought they could put out any manifesto they wanted, and even openly return to the old-school ‘Nasty Party’ meme, literally depict all opposition as some kind of nuisance (which Mrs May literally did on the day she announced the snap election), and even have Mrs May refusing to engage in debates.

It may all simply be old-fashioned elitist arrogance and not any type of more devious conspiracy. Nevertheless, there is an interesting case to make for the other argument – which is why it has piqued my interest.

Like this:

Related

On the face of it, it is easy to see such a conspiracy, I considered it myself a few weeks ago, however, I think that the collective arrogance of the millionaire class tory party has simply blinded them to how good their “track record” actually is(n’t). So convinced of a landslide, as suggested by the polls, they seriously thought they could put out a manifesto of their wet dreams and everyone would still vote for them. After a year of trashing Corbyn on every media platform they really did think they couldn’t loose. They really thought that with the media on their side, pumping out all their anti-Corbyn propaganda, they could dictate the terms of the debate, the terms of the election, and romp home to a bigger victory than Thatcher.

A week out from the election I’m more inclined to draw parallels with Clinton last year than the thought that May is deliberately throwing the election to avoid handling the steamin pile of shite that is Brexit.

I’ve thought about this as well, however, I don’t think the Tories want to drop the ball. I don’t believe the polls (after all the parties don’t pay attention to them, they get private polling done for them). The published polls are just for show. I expect May to get a majority of 80 or less and then to push through an economically damaging Brexit whilst blaming it on ‘the will of the people’, UKIP, Farage, Trump and the Russians.

Then six months later we apply to rejoin and everybody has learnt a pretty lesson the hard way!

I don’t think she’s going to get a majority as high as 80, and possibly not even as high as 30 – 40. But I totally agree with you that a ‘damaging’ Brexit will be pushed through and blamed on the ‘will of the people’ – which is also something I suggested in an article a couple of months ago.

My theory is a lot more straightforward. Firstly May is utterly hopeless – arguably the worst party leader in British political history. On the other hand, Corbyn is massively underrated largely because his opponents have come to believe in their own drivel. So she opportunistically calls a snap election fully expecting a landslide based on the polls as they stood. I’m not even sure May wanted to do this but those behind her doubtless pushed her into it anyway (In my more conspiratorial musings I envisage the Blairites at her arm doing a deal that will simultaneously undo Corbyn and “soften” Brexit on the sly – more in a moment). All that needs adding into this highly combustible mix is the Conservative’s bottomless contempt for the electorate combined with boundless and unbridled hubris.

Yes, the Tories want to win. Do they want Brexit? Almost certainly not in the way they claim – after all, the party is hugely divided and May herself was a remainer – but it was the strategy they decided to go with. A landslide would mean May could wheedle out of commitments later and direct government policies in whatever she preferred. “No deal is better than a bad deal” is bluster… and coming from someone who told us she wouldn’t call a snap election no less than 6 times, why trust anything she says? A close result but Tory win gives May more reason to “soften” Brexit, but I don’t think for a second that this has ever been the aim. May isn’t trying to be inept, she just is. And the media have doing doing everything possible to floor Corbyn but he has very ably ridden out the slurs and risen above the ridicule.

May is our Clinton…completely out of touch with the voters, is running a disasterous campaign which focuses more on smearing the opposition than promoting her own policies, is full of arrogant bluster, only answers pre approved questions from the media, indebted to the big business and the banks/financial sector…all she needs is an email leak by the Russians.

WoC, I’ve been finding it funny too. Even if Corbyn doesn’t win the election, he’s going to have done far better than anyone said he could – and will have fully justified his refusal to step aside to the Blairite crowd.
You also have to wonder what would happen if he does very well in this election: are the anti-Corbyn elements within Labour then going to acknowledge his success and get behind him, or will they just keep quiet about it?

I really don’t understand why you think Britain remaining in the EU would be anything but disaster. Is it not pandering to ever greater unaccountable centralism, utter contempt for the electorate’s will, and the dreams of our globalist banker overlords to support this increasingly totalitarian and corrupt entity that was brought into being by deception. The EU has failed: economically, ethically, and in any terms of representation for the people of Europe. Your support for it is baffling given other posts I have read here.

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